Quizard Of OZ

20 Nov 2016

1. International A.N.S.W.E.R, (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) or ANSWER Coalition, is a United States-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations. ANSWER has helped to organize many of the largest anti-war demonstrations in the United States, like those against the Iraq War. The group has also organized activities around a variety of other issues, ranging from the Israel/Palestine debate to immigrant rights to Social Security. The group was formed after which infamous historic event?

Ans: Sept. 11 attacks.

2. In January 2007, Yahoo! India launched 'Yahoo! Answers' -an online community where anyone can ask and answer questions on any topic. The forum was launched by a well known India, with the question "What should we do to free our planet from terrorism?" The question was answered by many including Leander Paes, Kiran Bedi and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Whose questions was it?

Ans: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

3. Suppose you want to send to a person in another country a letter, along with the cost of postage for a reply then you can use an international reply coupon (IRC). It is a coupon that can be exchanged for one or more postage stamps representing the minimum postage for an unregistered priority airmail letter. So the person receiving the IRC you sent, has to just go to a post office and exchange the coupon for postage stamp- Thus he can answer your mail without spending on postage. IRC was introduced in 1906 at a Universal Postal Union congress in Rome. IRC however was soon used to for a notorious fraud scheme that has gone down in history and even become a part of daily lexicon. What scheme ?

Ans: Ponzi Scheme. In 1920, Charles Ponzi made use of the idea that profit could be made by taking advantage of the differing postal rates in different countries to buy IRCs cheaply in one country and exchange them for stamps of a higher value in another country. This subsequently became the fraudulent Ponzi scheme.

4. An email storm is a sudden spike of Reply All messages on an email distribution list, usually caused by a controversial or misdirected message when multiple members of the distribution list reply to the entire list at the same time. On August 2016, the New York Times internal email system experienced such an email storm, so on September 2nd the NYT published an article titled "When I’m Mistakenly Put on an Email Chain, Should I Hit ‘Reply All’ Asking to Be Removed?"
All you have to write is the content of the article - verbatim.

Ans: No.

5. The 'Leonidas monument' is a modern monument at Thermopylae (Greece) built in honor of the Spartan king, who lead the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae. It features a bronze statue of Leonidas and a sign under the statue says something in Greek. These words (molon labé) were the answer of Leonidas to Xerxes' demand that the Greeks give up their weapons. What do they translate in English?

Ans: "Come and take them!"

6. The following are some clues that appeared in a few crosswords and their answers
17 across, "One of the U.S." : Utah
3 down, "Red Indian on the Missouri" : Omaha
11 across, "[common]... but some bigwig like this has stolen some of it at times.": Overlord
11 across, "This bush is a centre of nursery revolutions." : Mulberry
15 down, "Britannia and he hold to the same thing." : Neptune
Unlike many other crossword clues, these however have gone down in the annals of history and perhaps in many quizzes too. Why?

Ans: The crosswords appeared in 1944 and the answers to a few of these clues were codenames related to the D-Day plans. Leonard Dawe, Telegraph crossword compiler, created these puzzles and was arrested by MI5 at the school where he was a headmaster. He was interrogated intensively, but it was decided that he was innocent and it was all a mere coincidence. (There is a much interesting story to the coincidence, but that would make the answer just too long)

7. It was the 'Battle of Bulge', an important battle of the 2nd World war. Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the 101st Airborne Division was besieged by a far larger force of Germans at the crucial town of Bastogne. on 22nd December 1944 the German commander sent a surrender demand typewritten in English (below photograph is of the long letter). What was the reply of Anthony McAuliffe, that made him one of the most memorable commanders of WWII ?

Ans: "Nuts!"

The reply was typed up, centered on a full sheet of paper. It read:

"December 22, 1944

To the German Commander,

N U T S !

The American Commander"

8. '42 Puzzle' is a game devised by a well known author in 1994 for the United States series of his books. The puzzle is an illustration consisting of 42 multi-coloured balls, in 7 columns and 6 rows. In the puzzle the question is unknown, but the answer is already known to be 42. The puzzle was later incorporated into the covers of all of his reprinted novels in the United States. Which Author?

Ans: Douglas Adams for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. The number 42 in the book is the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth"...

9. "Southern Man" is a song by Neil Young , whose lyrics describe the racism towards blacks in the American South. In the song, Young tells the story of a white man (symbolically the entire white South) and how he mistreated his slaves. In the song Young asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery. As an answer to this song, this southern rock bank composed a song for their second album and the song went on to become the bands second hit single. It reached number 8 on the US chart in 1974 and far surpassed "Southern Man". The song is even played today in many FM stations across the world. Which song ?

13 Nov 2016

Last week- we had 10 questions on questions- I thought it was logical to follow that topic with this !

1. International A.N.S.W.E.R, (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) or ANSWER Coalition, is a United States-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations. ANSWER has helped to organize many of the largest anti-war demonstrations in the United States, like those against the Iraq War. The group has also organized activities around a variety of other issues, ranging from the Israel/Palestine debate to immigrant rights to Social Security. The group was formed after which infamous historic event?

2. In January 2007, Yahoo! India launched 'Yahoo! Answers' -an online community where anyone can ask and answer questions on any topic. The forum was launched by a well known India, with the question "What should we do to free our planet from terrorism?" The question was answered by many including Leander Paes, Kiran Bedi and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Whose questions was it?

3. Suppose you want to send to a person in another country a letter, along with the cost of postage for a reply then you can use an international reply coupon (IRC). It is a coupon that can be exchanged for one or more postage stamps representing the minimum postage for an unregistered priority airmail letter. So the person receiving the IRC you sent, has to just go to a post office and exchange the coupon for postage stamp- Thus he can answer your mail without spending on postage. IRC was introduced in 1906 at a Universal Postal Union congress in Rome. IRC however was soon used to for a notorious fraud scheme that has gone down in history and even become a part of daily lexicon. What scheme ?

Current IRC design valid until Dec. 2017

4. An email storm is a sudden spike of 'Reply All' messages on an email distribution list. It is usually caused by a controversial or misdirected message, when multiple members of the distribution list reply to the entire list at the same time. On August 2016, the New York Times internal email system experienced such an email storm, so on September 2nd the NYT published an article titled "When I’m Mistakenly Put on an Email Chain, Should I Hit ‘Reply All’ Asking to Be Removed?"
All you have to write is the content of the article - verbatim.

Page containing the article, content has been blanked out.

5. The 'Leonidas monument' is a modern monument at Thermopylae (Greece) built in honor of the Spartan king, who lead the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae. It features a bronze statue of Leonidas and a sign under the statue says something in Greek. These words (molon labé) were the answer of Leonidas to Xerxes' demand that the Greeks give up their weapons. What do they translate in English?

6. The following are some clues that appeared in a few crosswords in the Daily Telegraph.
17 across, "One of the U.S."
3 down, "Red Indian on the Missouri"
11 across, "[common]... but some bigwig like this has stolen some of it at times."
11 across, "This bush is a centre of nursery revolutions."
15 down, "Britannia and he hold to the same thing."
Unlike many other crossword clues, these however (because of their answer) have gone down in the annals of history and perhaps in many quizzes too. Why?

7. It was the 'Battle of Bulge', an important battle of the 2nd World War. Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the 101st Airborne Division was besieged by a far larger force of Germans at the crucial town of Bastogne. on 22nd December 1944 the German commander sent a surrender demand typewritten in English (below photograph is of the long letter). What was the reply of Anthony McAuliffe, that made him one of the most memorable commanders of WWII ?

8. '42 Puzzle' is a game devised by a well known author in 1994 for the United States series of his books. The puzzle is an illustration consisting of 42 multi-coloured balls, in 7 columns and 6 rows. In the puzzle the question is unknown, but the answer is already known to be 42. The puzzle was later incorporated into the covers of all of his reprinted novels in the United States. Which Author?

9. "Southern Man" is a song by Neil Young , whose lyrics describe the racism towards blacks in the American South. In the song, Young tells the story of a white man (symbolically the entire white South) and how he mistreated his slaves. In the song Young asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery. As an answer to this song, this southern rock bank composed a song for their second album and the song went on to become the bands second hit single. It reached number 8 on the US chart in 1974 and far surpassed "Southern Man". The song is even played today in many FM stations across the world. Which song ?
excerpt from the lyrics of the song- if it helps.

"Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ol' Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow"

10. If some one asked you a 'polar question' (a linguistics terminology), what are the possible answers that you can give ?

1. "?"- this was the entire content of a telegram sent by Victor Hugo, to his publishers, asking how 'Les Miserables' was selling. What was the publishers reply ?

Ans: "!"

2. The so called " Roman Question" was settled by the signing the Lateran Treaty in 1929. What was the result of the treaty?

Ans: The state of Vatican City was created and full and independent sovereignty was guaranteed to the Holy pope. The treaty was signed for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, papal secretary of state. The term "The Roman Question" was from the title of an article headed "The Roman Question" in the Westminster Review . It expressed the opinion that the Papal States should be deprived of the Adriatic provinces and be restricted to the territory around Rome.

3. Groups of officers called 'legati', were assigned to carry out a survey. They visited each county of their country and conducted public inquiries. The set of questions that these officers asked with the town and county representatives constituted the 'Inquisitio Eliensis'. The answers to these questions provided the basis for which famous manuscript?

Ans: The Domesday Book, which was a written record of a statistical survey of England ordered by William the Conqueror. The survey, made in 1086, was an attempt to register the landed wealth of the country in a systematic fashion, to determine the revenues due to the king. Domesday is a corruption of Doomsday (the day of the final judgment); the work was so named because its judgments in terms of levies and assessments were irrevocable.

4. The Modified Mercalli scale does not use any instruments to measure this natural phenomenon, but relies on the opinions of human observers. Scientist who use the Modified Mercalli scale, gather information by means of letter questionnaires sent to people who experienced the phenomenon or reports from the local population and then assign Mercalli numbers to points in the affected areas. Which phenomenon is thus measured in this way?

Ans: Earthquake. The scale has 12 levels of intensity. Each level is defined by a group of observable earthquake effects, such as shaking of the ground and damage to structures such as buildings, roads, and bridges. The levels are designated by the Roman numerals I to XII. Levels I through VI are used to describe what people see and feel during a small to moderate earthquake. Levels VII through XII are used to describe damage to structures during a moderate to catastrophic earthquake.

5. King Menander was a Greek ruler of a large Indo-Greek empire in the late 2nd century BC. The questions and dilemmas posed by the king were answered by the Buddhist philosopher and senior monk Nagasena. These question and answer dialogues, between the two, form the basis for which Buddhist doctrine?

Ans: Milinda Panha, in Pali means “Questions of Milinda”. Menander, was known to Indian sources as Milinda .This work forms a important part in Theravada Buddhism, in which certain key Buddhist teachings are explored.

6. This disease is caused by the bacterium Coxiella burnetii and was first described by Edward Holbrook Derrick of Queensland, Australia. The name for the disease is derived from the word 'Query' because when it was initially identified it posed many unanswered questions to Edward. Which disease?

Ans: Q fever.In which Q stands for query

7. During the religious meal of Seder, four to five cups of wine are poured. After the second cup is poured, the youngest child asks four standard questions about the unusual ceremonies:
“Why does this night differ from all other nights? For on all other nights we eat either leavened or unleavened bread; why on this night only unleavened bread?
On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs; why on this night only bitter herbs?
On all other nights we need not dip our herbs even once; why on this night must we dip them twice? On all other nights we eat either sitting up or reclining; why on this night do we all recline?”
Which festival is thus commenced with the partake of Seder?

Ans: The Jewish festival of Passover. The prepared answers to the questions are recited by all in unison.The fifth cup of wine is not drunk and is poured in honour of prophet Elijah.

8. Philosophers have attempted to answer this question for thousands of years. Today the four main theories they have proposed to answer this question are the correspondence, pragmatic, coherence, and deflationary theories. Which question?

Ans: “What is truth?”

9. The "Question Hour" in the 'Lok Sabha' (India's lower house of parliament) has two main types of question—Starred and non-starred. What is the difference between the two?

Ans: Starred Questions are those for which an oral answer is expected. The member is allowed to ask a supplementary question, with the permission of the Speaker, after the reply is obtained from the Minister concerned. Non-starred questions are those for which a written reply is expected. After the reply has been provided, no supplementary question can be asked.

10. Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain? was a game show on Indian Television channel STAR Plus and was based on the American game show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Which Indian star hosted the show?

6 Nov 2016

"The Answer to the Great Question Of…Life, the Universe and Everything…[is] Forty-two."
-The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

1. "?"- this was the entire content of a telegram sent by Victor Hugo, to his publishers, asking how 'Les Miserables' was selling. What was the publishers reply ?

2. The so called " Roman Question" was settled by the signing the Lateran Treaty in 1929. What was the result of the treaty?

3. Groups of officers called 'legati', were assigned to carry out a survey. They visited each county of their country and conducted public inquiries. The set of questions that these officers asked with the town and county representatives constituted the 'Inquisitio Eliensis'. The answers to these questions provided the basis for which famous manuscript?

4. The Modified Mercalli scale does not use any instruments to measure this natural phenomenon, but relies on the opinions of human observers. Scientist who use the Modified Mercalli scale, gather information by means of letter questionnaires sent to people who experienced the phenomenon or reports from the local population and then assign Mercalli numbers to points in the affected areas. Which phenomenon is thus measured in this way?

5. King Menander was a Greek ruler of a large Indo-Greek empire in the late 2nd century BC. The questions and dilemmas posed by the king were answered by the Buddhist philosopher and senior monk Nagasena. These question and answer dialogues, between the two, form the basis for which Buddhist doctrine?

Silver coin of Menander

6. This disease is caused by the bacterium Coxiella burnetii and was first described by Edward Holbrook Derrick of Queensland, Australia. The name for the disease is derived from the word 'Query' because when it was initially identified it posed many unanswered questions to Edward. Which disease?

7. During the religious meal of Seder, four to five cups of wine are poured. After the second cup is poured, the youngest child asks four standard questions about the unusual ceremonies:
“Why does this night differ from all other nights? For on all other nights we eat either leavened or unleavened bread; why on this night only unleavened bread?
On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs; why on this night only bitter herbs?
On all other nights we need not dip our herbs even once; why on this night must we dip them twice? On all other nights we eat either sitting up or reclining; why on this night do we all recline?”
Which festival is thus commenced with the partake of Seder?

8. Philosophers have attempted to answer this question for thousands of years. Today the four main theories they have proposed to answer this question are the correspondence, pragmatic, coherence, and deflationary theories. Which question?

9. The "Question Hour" in the 'Lok Sabha' (India's lower house of parliament) has two main types of question—Starred and non-starred. What is the difference between the two?

10. Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain? was a game show on Indian Television channel STAR Plus and was based on the American game show, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader"? Which Indian star hosted the show?

30 Oct 2016

1.What important discovery was made by the shepherd Jum’a, of the Taamireh tribe of the nomadic Bedouins in 1947?

Ans: The dead sea scrolls

2.In Greek mythology she was goddess of the Moon. She fell in love with Edymion, a shepherd on Mount Latmos in Caria, where she lulled Edymion into an eternal sleep so that he could never leave her. She visited him every night as he lay asleep in a cave and bore him 50 daughters. Which element in the periodic table is named after this goddess?

Ans: Selenium, after godess Selene. She was usually represented as a woman with the moon (often in crescent form) on her head and driving a two-horse chariot. As Luna, she had temples at Rome on the Aventine and Palatine hills.

3. Girolamo Fracastoro, a physician from Verona, wrote a poem, in which he described new disease,and its treatment.The hero of this poem is a Shepherd, whose name literally means ' friend of swine ' The poem is about a shepherd boy who insulted the Greek god Apollo and was punished by that god with a horrible disease. Today, this disease, caused by the bacteria Treponema pallidum, is named after this character. Which disease?

Ans: Syphilis, The poem was called 'Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus'(Syphilis or the French Disease)

4.Which place in Telangana, well known for a fort, among other precious items, gets its name because it was built on a shepherd's hill. The fort was was first built by the Kakatiya dynasty and the place later became the capital of the medieval sultanate of the Qutb Shahi dynasty?

Ans: Golconda.from Golla Konda. There us an alternate etymology for Golconda, Gol konda ("Round shaped hill"). The precious items being the Koh-i-Noor, the Hope Diamond and the Nassak Diamond, which were mined here.

5. The discovery of what is attributed to 'Magnes the shepherd boy' by encyclopedist Pliny the Elder?
P.S. 'Etymologiae' by Isidore of Seville tells the same story as Pliny, but places Magnes in India and so does Vincent of Beauvais in ' Miroir du Monde and Thomas Nicols' in Lapidary, where Magnes is called as "shepherd of India"

Ans: Magnet. he describes “the nails of whose shoes and the tip of whose staff stuck fast in a magnetic field while he pastured his flocks.”

6 . Some planets of our Solar system have a natural satellite, which are called 'Shepard Moons'. What characteristic feature in these planets is caused by these 'Shepard moons' ?

Ans: The gaps in the ring system of the planets, the most well known such gap being the Cassini Division. The name is a result of the fact they limit the "herd" of the ring particles as a shepherd.

7 Which flower is called the 'shepherd's barometer' or "shepherd's weather glass", because the flowers close at the approach of rain and opens in bright sunshine? A famous novel on which numerous movies and TV shows are based is named after this flower.

Ans: The Scarlet Pimpernel.

8. Two well known Indian kingdoms were founded by people belonging to the shepherd cast. One was founded by Malhar Rao, belonging to the Dhangar shepherds clan and other founded by Hukka (Harihara I) and Bukka (Bukka Raya), belonging to the Kuruba shepherd community - Identify any one of the kingdom.

Ans: Holkar and Vijayanagar kingdoms.

9. In Homer's Odyssey, these shepherds living in Sicily were a lawless, savage, and cannibalistic race fearing neither gods nor humans. The Greek hero Odysseus was once trapped with his men in the cave of one of these shepherds called Polyphemus. Several of Odysseus's men were devoured by this giant shepherd but Odysseus managed to escape from the cave by cunningly blinding him. Which mythological race of giants ?

Ans: The Cyclops. They were giants with one enormous eye in the middle of the forehead.

10. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was founded in 1977 by Paul Watson, a former member of Greenpeace, after a dispute with that organization over what Watson saw as its lack of more aggressive intervention. Supported by some and called eco-terrorist by others, the groups controversial tactics are directed for prevention of what illegal practice at sea?